Ring Out

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To win a match held in a bounded area by throwing, forcing, or tricking the enemy into stepping out of bounds, thus disqualifying them on a technicality.

Occasionally justified by the rules of the sport - but only a few Real Life sports use it. Another justification is to make the edge of the ring be a Bottomless Pit. The Ring-Out Boss is a subtrope of this where a boss in a videogame has to be defeated by a Ring Out.

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Examples:

This was a valid way of winning in each Tournament Arc... until the Cell Games, when Cell decides to nuke the ring from orbit so they can keep fighting since Goku's made it so much fun to play.

You have to touch anything outside the ring to be disqualified. Goku got away with using the Flying Nimbus to save himself once (since the judges were unclear on whether clouds counted as "outside the ring"), but was told he can't use it anymore after that; instead he learns to fly by spinning his tail like a helicopter and then more traditionally later on.

The "anything outside the ring" rule is critical in the second tournament arc, where the main opponent, Tenshinhan, initially is able to flout the rule by being able to fly. Goku eventually manages to knock him out of the sky, though he falls as well. With their starting trajectories, Tenshinhan hits the ground first... except Goku happens to smash into the side of a car a split second beforehand. Thus, according to the rules, Goku loses by pure dumb luck.

This rule was later brought up in the Buu Saga, but it wasn't necessarily a good thing as it allowed one of the villains to perform an outright horrific No-Holds-Barred Beatdown by preventing his opponent (Gohan's girlfriend Videl) from touching the ground outside the arena.

In Dragon Ball Super, the tournament between Universes 6 and 7 uses the Budokai's rules (as per Goku's suggestion), meaning the ring out rule is in effect here too. It ends up happening a lot, most importantly during Goku's fight with Hit, where Goku rings himself out to protest Beerus and Champa's behavior. Hit returns the favor by throwing the fight (badly) against Monaka, which means Universe 7 wins the tournament. Other fights play with this concept, like Botamo, who can only be beaten by a ring-out, and Vegeta's fight with Magetta, where the ring explodes and Vegeta only remains in the match because he landed on one of the broken pieces of the ring itself.

The Tournament of Power has this as its main rule — aside from disqualifications, ring-outs are the only way to win, and whichever team has the most members remaining at the end of time limit wins. It's also the way the Universe 7 team manages to ultimately beat Jiren and win.

The Martial Arts Gymnastics tournament in Ranma ½. Notable in that the ring can move on command. Once the people under the ring were forced to run for it, taking the ring with them, the fight continued on the ringposts. It ended with Ranma breaking Kodachi's post, dropping her to the floor while she desperately clung to the broken halves.

This is also implied in the Joketsuzoku ("Chinese Amazon") tournament that Ranma interrupted while in China. Getting kicked off the dueling log cost Shampoo the championship, even though she wasn't knocked unconscious.

The "woman" she beat just before Ranma ate the prize lost pretty much the same way.

Though in the Dark Tournament, you have to be outside the ring for ten seconds (or more accurately, ten counts) to be considered out, just as you have to stay down for ten seconds to be out. Most fights end with somebody dead or unconscious anyway because otherwise they can just climb back into the ring. The exception being Kuwabara whose opponent tied him up so he couldn't reach the ring, and was later tricked into being warped out of the stadium... twice.

Subverted in Eyeshield 21. With only a few seconds left on the clock and with the Devilbats behind, they have to force themselves out of the field in order to stop the clock. In one special case, Monta used his catching skills to grab the out of bounds and stop the clock.

The above spoiler is a valid tactic in American football in order to stop the clock.

In Futaba-kun Change!, this was a rule for the ridiculous tournament held to determine which club the female Futaba would join. Male Futaba accidentally wins one match by knocking a little guy from the Gardening Club out of the ring while fighting a giant carnivorous plant, that guy being his actual opponent.

In the Dressrosa arc of One Piece, this is one of the rules in the Corrida Colosseum tournaments. The young gladiator Rebecca uses that to her advantage, using her speed and Observation Haki to throw her opponents outside the ring. It is noted that she has never injured opponents directly because she always does this.

Being a manga on wrestling, this happens in Tiger Mask from time to time, the most notable instances being:

In the Maskmen World Championship the fight between Tiger Mask and Gold Mask ends in a draw because they both get out of the ring, and while Tiger Mask knocks out his opponent he fails to climb back in time. Later in the final match, Tiger Mask and Great Zebra risk losing at one point due being both out of the ring while Mr. X was counting on them.

During the fight with Black V for the Maskmen World Championship Tiger Mask defeats his opponent by ring-out, neutralizing his immunity to submission moves by slamming him on the concrete of the floor (the mattresses having been eliminated on Tiger Mask's request) while keeping the head pressed on his opponent's back.

Tiger Mask's third finishing move, the Tiger V, ends with the opponent knocked out and thrown out of the ring for added humiliation, with them losing by ring out unless Tiger Mask drags them back on the ring.

A ring out is one of the ways for a victory during the finals tournament of the U.A. Sports Festival arc in My Hero Academia. Shinsou's entire tactic is to use his brainwashing Quirk to make his opponent turn around and walk out of bounds, thus winning without even throwing a punch; it would have worked had he not been fighting Deku. Momo also notably loses this way, having been so busy evading Tokoyami's attacks that she stepped out of bounds without realising.

Literature

In Guardians of the Flame, warrior Karl realizes he's out of his depth during the Arena games, and has to find some unorthodox tactics to secure his victory. One of them is making use of the previously largely ignored Ring Out rule.

Live Action—Film

In Ip Man, the final fight against General Miura is held on a raised platform with falling off it as a defeat condition. In the sequel, Ip has to take challenges from the other Hong Kong-based masters on a table, with getting off the table as one of the defeat conditions.

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Live Action TV

American Gladiators had this as half of the two-part 'Breakthrough and Conquer' event. The 'Conquer' half required the player to force any part of the Gladiator's body out of a round wrestling-style ring within the allotted 10 or 15 seconds. This was probably toughest and often funniest when the female contenders were trying to do it to six-foot tall Sky.

The ring out is a standard part of the professional wrestling ruleset.

The Battle Royal, where you must toss your opponents out of the ring (over the top rope only) to win. And there are a lot of variations on it (WWE's Royal Rumble, where the entrants enter in sequence, is probably the most well known). In normal matches, on the other hand, a wrestler who's out of the ring for a 10 count - 20 in Japan - (regardless of whether he went over the top rope) is counted out and loses.

Inverted with steel cage matches, as one of the ways to win such a match is to escape the cage. Sometimes, escaping through the entrance gate is an option, but it's generally considered much cooler when the gate is padlocked after the wrestlers enter and the only way to escape is to climb the cage. There have been several instances throughout the history of the sport where one wrestler, typically a Wrestling Monster, will throw his opponent through the wall of the cage, giving that wrestler the victory. (This is generally done to keep the monster looking strong while his opponent gains the victory.)

Also inverted in the sense that getting yourself to touch the ropes (however slightly) is a common way to counter a submission hold, as the opponent has a 5 count to let go or be disqualified.

Largely ignoring such was/is trademark of FMW and its various imitators. Enforcing this ruling was one of the main motivations of Drew Gulak's campaign for a better CZW and even after that lost steam Cherry Bomb Invoked it to try and cut a mandatoryWSU Title defense of hers short, only it was almost immediately revoked by Sami Callihan, determined to make sure such a thing never took hold in the company.

Tabletop Games

In BattleTech, a unit that skids or is forced off the map cannot normally return and is considered destroyed or in retreat (usually depending on which edge it was forced off) for victory purposes. This can happen purely by accident or as a result of enemy action — for instance, a BattleMech at the edge of the map can potentially be simply pushed off by another. Likewise, units forced into prohibited terrain (i.e., of a type that they could not normally enter of their own volition) may find themselves simply destroyed outright as a result.

On a similar note, both Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 prohibit units from leaving the battlefield normally, but if they do, they're counted as losses. The usual reason for this is a failed Morale check, or worse, a Tank Shock. (Unlike most scenarios that result in a Morale check, a tank is perfectly capable of following the fleeing unit across the map to keep "pushing" them and preventing them from regrouping — memorably indicated in one Turn Signals on a Land Raider strip as the tank physically pushing the hapless infantry off the table.) Fliers are the one exception, able to freely return from the game after leaving; since they have a minimum speed they have to move each round, and a maximum amount they can turn, they sometimes can't avoid leaving.

Star Wars: Legion has any unit that leaves the board be instantly defeated. This is usually either because they panic off the table, or because they fall victim to an attack that allows their opponent to move them.

Virtua Fighter. In later installments you have to smash a wall or two first; in the first few installments, before Edge Gravity, it was very easy to ring yourself out by mistake.

In 5 there are also different wall heights. Some walls go up to the ceiling so there's no way to get a Ring Out next to those (unless it's destructible). Some walls come up to the characters' waists, which makes it possible to Ring Out but you need to hit a decent Launcher Move to throw your opponent over those edges. Then some walls only come up to the characters' ankles. These walls function similar to Soulcalibur in that you can't ring yourself out just by walking to the edge but being floated out of the ring is relatively trivial. Also similar to Soulcalibur are the inclusion of partially-walled stages where Ring Outs are only possible on some sides of the ring. There is also one stage (the gym stage) where the edges will be blocked or exposed depending on what round the fight is in.

In Soulcalibur III's Chronicles of the Sword mode, ring outs inflict half their max HP worth of damage. Also, True Final Boss Night Terror is immune entirely and will just fly back into the ring.

The Tekken franchise is typically doesn't do ring outs, featuring endless arenas or ones with explicit walls, but the fight with NANCY-MI847J in Tekken 6 has a destructable floor which is an instant KO for you if you ever fall through.

Dragon Ball Z video games will sometimes use this on the World Tournament Arena stage. The Dragon Ball Z: Budokai games represented it as an Invisible Wall around the ring, and being knocked into it was an instant defeat even if the fighter was in mid-air at the time. Budokai Tenkaichi was more forgiving and anime-accurate, letting players fight outside the ring as long as they didn't touch any solid surface except the arena floor. Finally, some games like Dragon Ball Xenoverse do away with the concept entirely, presumably with the Hand Wave that their Ki Manipulation skills let them avoid touching out-of-bounds areas.

While you can toss objects and enemies out of bounds in Phantom Brave and Makai Kingdom, doing so to enemies just increases the remaining enemy levels by the same amount of the monster that was tossed. Any of your allies that get the same treatment, however, are just gone from the field for the remainder of the battle.

In Def Jam: Fight For New York, there are a couple stages with ring out potential. But you have to smash the ring barriers with the opponent's face a few times in order to get them through. Then there's the Subway stage, where a Ring Out is only an instant win if a train is coming.

The Japanese Mega Drive game Aah Harimanda is all about sumo wrestling, and, well, the goal is to get the opponent out of the ring.

While the rest of the Dead or Alive series would avert this with its famous free-form arenas, this trope was played straight in the original game (part of what contributes to its Early Installment Weirdness). The outer rim of the ring was an explosive field that would blow up fighters that were knocked down onto it but if you could push your opponent beyond this boundary, you would score a Ring Out victory.

Each stage of Real Bout Fatal Fury (except Geese Tower) had destroyable boundaries at the edges. Getting knocked out (or falling out on your own) rewarded your opponent with a special animation as well as the win for the round.

Battle Arena Toshinden (with the additional Good Bad Bug of the victor being able to fall out of the ring themselves during their Victory Pose). In fact, beating the game on a two-day rental was a fairly mean feat if you once figured out the knack for performing the Ring Out trick even up to and on the final boss.

Dark Messiah has a kick attack that can send enemies flying a good distance. The game's environments are built in such a way that this move can be more devastating than the best spells or weapons, to the point where 1UP.com dubbed it "The Adventures of Sir Kicksalot Deathboot in the Land of the Conspicuously Placed Spike Racks".

This is how King Hippo is KOed in Punch-Out!! Wii. He has so much health that the player only has to KO him once, at which point he falls out of the ring on his own.

The bosses of Castles 1 and 7 in Super Mario World can only be defeated by knocking them off the platform into the surrounding Lava Pit.

Similarly, Bullies and Big Bullies in Super Mario 64 (DS) can only be defeated in the same way.

Inverted in Super Mario 64 with Big Bob-omb. Throwing him off his mountain will restart the battle from the beginning.

In the Bloody Roar series, you can choose to have walls around the arena or not; and if you have walls turned on, you can choose whether they're breakable or not. In either case, if you leave the ring, it's an automatic victory for the other player.

In the arena fights with the handmaidens and Mandalorians in Knights of the Old Republic II where you are allowed to use the Force, using one of the Force Push line of powers to knock the opponents out of the ring automatically disqualifies them.

In something like an inversion of Ledge Bats, Kratos can ring out some of his enemies by physically dragging or throwing them across the invisible line that marks their A.I. boundary, while he himself has no such artificial boundaries and is protected against normal pits by Edge Gravity (even when Blown Across the Room).

Prince of Persia (2008) has this. It's how 90% of the mooks are likely to die, given how block-happy they are, and a good way to kill The Hunter. Beating The Warrior tends to require you do this, as well.

One of the stadia in Carmageddon is a giant tower and you can ram your opponents over the edge. Technically this doesn't result in an automatic write off as it is just possible to have your car sufficiently powered up to survive the resulting damage, but it is almost impossible to return from without restarting.

Mass Effect had open areas where this was a viable strategy. A combination of a Lift and Throw biotic combo at high levels could easily throw an enemy out of the playable area for an instant-kill. The later Mass Effect games also used this to an extent, though limits on leveling your abilities made it harder.

In Bomberman 64 pretty much any boss the same size as Bomberman can be defeated this way, by first stunning them with a bomb kick and then picking them up like a bomb and tossing them off the edge of the stage for an instant kill. Amusingly, at least one of the bosses (Orion) is aware of this strategy and will do it to you if you let him stun you with his green energy wave.

The first two games have Bumper Balls, a mini-game that can only be won by forcing opponents off the circular playing field, eliminating them.

The fourth game has the sumo-based "Bowser Wrestling" mini-game, in which winning is accomplished by shoving the other character out of the ring.

Several boss battles in Final Fantasy XIV take places in arenas where falling off the edge is a One-Hit Kill on you with no way for your healers to revive you (until Stormblood), with Titan being the first and most memorable of these. The battle against Ultros and Typhon has a non lethal version where getting blown out of the ring immobilizes you for a few moments before you're allowed to jump back into the fight and if the entire party is shoved out of the ring, it counts as a loss.

In Caveman Ugh-Lympics, you can defeat your opponent in the Clubbing event one of two ways: beating them senseless, or pushing them toward the cliff edge. Hitting the opponent with repeated low strikes causes them to grab their foot and hop backwards a few steps. If they get pushed all the way back, the cliff edge breaks off, and they fall down.

Overwatch: Most maps feature a Bottomless Pit here or there, making ring-out eliminations possible. A number of attacks do Knock Back, which makes these attacks very useful for getting ring-out eliminations. Other abilities can also be creatively used to get a ring-out, such as using Roadhog's Hook to pull an opponent over a pit and then release them or firing Orisa's Halt over a pit to pull opponents toward it and over the edge. Several heroes have abilities that can prevent a ring-out if used correctly.

Killer Instinct usually lacks ring outs, with the traditional "out of arena" death animations being more akin to Mortal Kombat's stage fatalities in that they can only be done to an opponent on 0 life. The secret Sky Stage, however, lets either of the two fighters accidentally fall off of the stage if they misstep even slightly off of the edge or mistime a jump.

In The Legend of Korra this is an important mechanic of pro-bending. Forcing an opposing player off the back (and only the back) of the arena and into the surrounding pool removes them from the game for the remainder of the round. Forcing all three opposing players off the back in a single round is an Instant-Win Condition, which is why, in a best of three rounds format, the third round is always played. It's the only way left to win for a team down two rounds.

Real Life

Sumo has a number of kimarite (winning techniques) and a couple hiwaza (non-techniques) centered on ring outs, with yorikiri (frontal force-out) being the most commonly used technique in the entire sport.

In Wrestling (Greco-Roman and freestyle), causing an opponent to go out of bounds scores you one point.

In Robot Wars, the arena had two walls: a fully enclosed one to protect the audience from shrapnel, and an inner wall a couple feet high which protected the outer wall from being directly hit by robots' weapons. A gap of several feet separated them, allowing the installation of tracks for remotely operated cameras inside the arena which couldn't have their view blocked by the steel framework supporting the lexan wall panels. This also had the unintended consequence that a sufficiently powerful flipper robot could throw an opponent over the inner wall and defeat it. In later series, most robots could run upside-down or self-right, and were durable enough to not suffer much internal damage from being flipped, rendering the original purpose of flippers almost useless, so flippers ended up relying on Ring Outs to win. After the televised series ended, spinners were banned in the heavyweight class due to the touring events not having the budget for arenas that could withstand them, so flippers became extremely dominant. Note that in robotic combat, a Ring Out is usually referred to as an OOTA (Out Of The Arena).

You can also win this way in most video games based on robotic combat, including adaptations of Robot Wars as well as titles like Robot Arena 2 that aren't based on any particular event.

YMMV for other events, especially outside of Europe. Some events, like BattleBots in its original televised run, have no real gap between the inner and outer walls, with the lower portion of the walls simply being a more durable but non-transparent material, making a Ring Out impossible. In other events, like Robogames, the gap between inner and outer walls is narrow enough that while robots in the smaller weight classes can easily be thrown out, larger ones may only fit at a certain angle or not at all, and can slide back into the arena. In others, like the reboot of BattleBots and many events in small weight classes, a Ring Out is only possible in certain, relatively small areas. This has been executed at least once, with Wrecks's gigantic saw sending Witch Doctor flying into the air and landing in one of said small areas.

In a few "Sumo-style" events like Robot Battles, the arena is a raised platform which robots can be pushed off of, making Ring Outs THE primary winning method. It also helps that due to the lack of a lexan wall most of the really damaging weapons are banned.

Gymnastics floor routines deduct points for stepping out of the ring.

In Kendo forcing an opponent of bounds results a foul, which can be a round or match winning point. However, "unfair shoving or pushing" of an opponent out gets the pusher a foul. You're going to have to do it with footwork and clever offense.

The same is true in Western-style fencing.

In judo, if a contestant is outside the mat for a certain period of time, the match is stopped and restarted with both contestants standing at the center of the mat. Squirming your way off the mat is a perfectly viable tactic for breaking a hold.

This is usually how fights between male beetles are decided, both in the wild and in the staged beetle fights that are a popular gambling activity in Japan and parts of continental Asia. The beetles generally wrestle on top of a log or branch until one of them is knocked off.

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